Fiestas Patrias

Slightly out of focus, perhaps due to the local cervezas.

This past weekend all of Chile celebrated Fiestas Patrias, commemorating the first steps taken towards independence from Spain in 1810. It is the equivalent of July 4th and, dare I say, the Chileans may even celebrate harder than we do. For example, during the span of Friday - Monday, I went to 4 Asados Chilenos (essentially BBQs) and woke up with varying degrees of hangovers every day. Everybody was extremely gracious and hospitable and I feel very fortunate to be here for such a special weekend.

Sorry for the delay...

Bienvenido a la Patagonia!

Hi All,

Somehow it's already been almost 3 weeks since I left Chicago for Chile. My apologies for taking so long to get this blog started. As a recap, I'm spending the remainder of 2011 working for NOLS, an outdoor education organization that leads groups into the wilderness on courses lasting from 2 weeks up to 5 months. In 2010 I took a 30-day NOLS mountaineering course in northwest Washington in the Cascades mountain range. One of my instructors was Marcelo, a Chilean mountain climber who works at NOLS Patagonia during the (North American) winter and leads courses in the US in the summer. He is my connection to Chile and is ultimately the reason I was able to come down here.

Ok, enough of that background stuff...